The Creative Strings Workshop Youth Program provides an affordable opportunity for young string players to study fiddle styles, blues, rock, world music, & jazz as well as learn about arranging and composing, how to amplify and play electric instruments, improvise their own solos, and try many new approaches to music making.

Benefits:

Become creatively self-expressed and develop your musical voice.

Internalize harmony, voice-leading, scales, modes, and apply them.

Become fluent in contemporary styles so you can jam with musicians outside of classical music, create YouTube covers, and more.

Tonal Improvisation, Arranging, and Composition:

Melodic improvisation and composition are demystified as we discover how to easily construct melodies, bass lines, and accompaniment parts. Throughout the session, participants will improvise over chord progressions in bluegrass, reggae, waltz, rock, latin, and classical styles.

Watch this video for a sample of Christian’s teaching:

Amplified strings, Looping and Effects In The Classroom, Practice Room, And Stage

Short/description: Using loop pedals and effects with amplified string instruments allows teachers to easily engage students in group exercises related to both traditional and eclectic styles. This session presents an overview of how to use loops and effects as a tool for teaching, practice, and performance. Gain insights into the basics of looping technology, how to create loops, common issues with looping, and how to go beyond the basics to get your students excited about creative practice.

Related Video:

Blues

As literary and musical form – Harmonic, Melodic, and Rhythmic applications.

Insider tips including how to combine the major and minor pentatonic and/or blues scales

How bass lines and inner voice patterns show up in common iterations of 12 bar blues

Free Improvisation and Non-Tonal Composition

Participants will compose in small groups using “composition games.” During this interactive session you will feel empowered by the end of the session to perform your compositions and apply what you learned in your daily practice or teaching.

Related Videos:

Conducted Group Improvisation

Using cue cards and a system of hand signals, Christian conducts a large ensemble in group improvisation. Engage in call and response, looping, “musical wrestling”, vamps, modal grooves, occasional musical chaos, with a multitude of stylistic applications. Participants also get to conduct!

Conduction is a popular practice among contemporary ensembles worldwide, including small groups and even orchestras. Christian’s approach to conduction borrows from a variety of sources and caters to the skill set of classically trained string players.

Modal approach to improvisation: How to apply a modal approach as an improviser, arranger, or composer.

Nominated for “Violinist of the Year” by the Jazz Journalists Association, voted first place in the Downbeat Critics Poll (rising stars) in 2011, and voted among the top three jazz violinists in the Jazz Times Critics Poll (2013), Christian Howes headlined six nights at Lincoln Center in 2013 and recently toured Ukraine at the invitation of the U.S. Embassy. His most recent album on Resonance Records, "Southern Exposure", is available at the shop.